Specifications, such as the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineer's (IEEE) 802.3af-2003, specify power consumption limits for a powered device (PD). For example, the IEEE 802.3af-2003 specification specifies the following power consumption limits for a PD:
1. average input power shall not exceed 12.95 W; and
2. peak power shall not exceed 12.95 W for more than 50 ms maximum and 5% duty cycle.
The second condition can present problems to devices such as 802.11 compliant radios because power consumption of a radio is typically higher in transmit mode than in receive mode.
Typical solutions to the aforementioned problem include 1) consume less power at peak consumption mode (e.g., use less transmit (TX) power), 2) consume less power in general, such as reducing CPU power through clock reduction or feature reduction such as less DRAM, low-speed Ethernet, etc., and/or 3) not operating with a Power over Ethernet (PoE) or other supply with limited maximum input power. However, all of these solutions introduce feature or product degradation.